Joe Bennett: Conversations at the checkout - never know what you're gonna get

A trip to the supermarket leads to an unexpected encounter with a former student. Photo / Getty Images

A DOG'S LIFE

You may suspect me of making this up. You would be wrong. You may suspect me of exaggerating. You would be wrong. You may suspect me of boasting. You would be right.

He was hard not to notice. He was big, perhaps six foot three, with large limbs, a mass of fairish hair and the sort of moustache that would please a wing commander. The spectacularity of the moustache was emphasised by the white zinc sunscreen with which he'd plastered the rest of his face.

His brightly coloured shorts were as noticeable as his moustache, and as for his shirt, when I passed close by I swear I heard it say aloha. Here was a young man who did not blend in, who did not fear the gaze of others, or their judgement. He was himself, take him for all in all, and that is a fine thing. We are too subject to the tyranny of the herd.

He was being loud in an aisle of Lyttelton SuperValue debating purchases with a not-quite-so-noticeable-but-still-emphatically-herself young woman. She was wearing a voluminous printed cotton skirt that would not have looked out of place in Timaru in 1953.

Having duly noticed the pair of them I passed by on the other side of the pasta, and arrived shortly afterwards at the checkout with my burden of groceries: pork belly, garlic and feta.

"Hello Joe." I turned and found myself face to face with the wing commander moustache and the voluminous skirt.

"Hello," I said,

She was carrying yoghurt and bacon. He was merely smiling. At that moment a cashier became free and I stepped forward to disgorge my goods on to the little conveyor belt.

"We've met before," went on the noticeable young man.

"Really?"

"Yes. At the airport."

"Really?" I said. "I'm sorry, I don't remember."

"It was 10 years ago."

"Oh."

He looked to be in his late 20s. So 10 years ago would have been his late teens, that most volatile period, that time of greatest intensity, after which adult life can seem as flat as paper.

"You told me," he said, "to stop playing video games and read Camus."

Oh dear, that was me all right. The moral bully, the evangelist for the redemptive power of literature. And especially the Camus. I read L'Etranger at 16 and it did for me as very little has ever done for me. Though it's set in Algeria in the 1950s it seemed to spring straight from the heart of life as I knew it.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I had no right to …"

"No no. I loved it. L'Etranger. Best book I ever read."

I didn't have to ask if he was serious. His grin said he was serious. By now he and Ms Voluminous were unloading goods on to their own adjacent conveyor belt and we were conducting this conversation publicly between aisles.

"Well, isn't that lovely," I said then paused to concentrate on my PIN. I know from experience that the great religious ritual of eftpos requires from me complete devotion. When I was done I turned back to the young man.

"So what now?" I said.

"Now," he said, "I want to know what to read next," and a woman behind us, carrying a whole head of celery, snorted.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Evelyn Waugh."

"Spell it."

I spelt it. "Start with Brideshead Revisited."

They'd paid. I'd paid. We walked out of the supermarket together.

"What do you do for a living?" I said on the street.

"Musician. I play the piano."

"Splendid," I said and shook his hand and turned to go.

"See you in 10 years," he said.

"It's a date," I said and I went on my way humming.

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